Absolution
by piper maru duchovny
Summary: And as the door slammed shut with Tatum on the inside, Lindsay Monroe found her absolution. -Post SOoH.


**This was an idea that hit me. It's hard to explain - I've been feeling weird lately, so if this seems weird I guess that's why. It was just something I could see Lindsay going through. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

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**_So what if you can see, the darkest side of me, no one will ever change this animal I have become. - Three Days Grace;; _

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**Her nerves would wreak havoc on her body; her pulse would race, her palms would sweat, and her brain wouldn't shut off. The psychiatrist she had been forced to visit before getting assigned to a precinct has explained that she had been suffering from undiagnosed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder since she was sixteen years old. With a roll of her eyes and the huff of her breath she had swore to take the medication and find a psychiatrist to visit on a regular basis – she never had.

The first time she had been forced to fire her gun on the job was during a drug bust in Missoula, Montana. They had stumbled upon a Meth house and one of the suspects had decided to go through a run through the field while resisting arrest. She had chased after the man for a quarter of a mile, announced her presence far more than was required, when she slowed long enough to take her aim and fire her gun. As her finger pulled back on the trigger she felt like she was sixteen years old again with her knees curled to her chest and hands covering her ears.

The bullet left the gun.

BANG! The waitress.

She fired again.

BANG! Kelly.

She pulled the trigger again.

BANG! Ashley.

One final time, she pulled the trigger and the round went flying toward the staggering suspect.

BANG! Mackenzie.

The first time she had to fire her gun on the job was the first time she had ever taken another person's life. Her hand was shaking as she watched the wretched soul's blood seep from the bullet wounds into the ground where the wheat had grown. Her stomach turned and she could hear the screams like Abel crying out to God. A fellow officer had carefully removed her gun from her hand before leading her shaking body back to the squad care where she had collapsed in the passenger seat with her head between her knees.

Anyone in the precinct who knew her story had refused to look her in the eyes for days following her first shooting. Her superiors had bypassed punishment and suggested that she make an appointment with the department shrink instead. She had put on her stubborn bullheaded front and faced her demons with a visit home to her father instead.

Something had twisted and hardened inside the once sweet and innocent Lindsay Monroe. She had, had her moments after the shooting. She had been through the stages of grief; she'd gotten in trouble, lived so close to the edge that she almost fell off a few times, but this was no act of teenage rebellion. This was the hatred that settled like cement in the bottom of her gut and the pain that overtook her heart. She was still the nicest person you could meet but when she was chasing the suspects nothing got in her way of justice – not even the law.

In every criminal she saw a little bit of the murderer; the hair was the same color, the eyes the same shape, the breathing sounded the same. In every victim she saw the girls; the crooked smiles, the innocence stained by blood. Every time she fired her gun, she was saving another girl from going through the pain she had felt. Every time she took down another man with a vengeance she was apologizing to the girls for living.

BANG! One more criminal off the street.

BANG! One more girl who won't have survivor's guilt.

BANG! One more mother that won't have to say goodbye to her daughter on a slab in the morgue.

BANG! One more night that she can close her eyes and not see the blood, hear the screams, or feel the pain.

Standing with her arms crossed over her chest, back scraping against the cinder block walls, and pulse pounding in her ears she watched. The sheriff held onto the chain between Tatum's cuffs as he was lead into the jail cell.

BANG! Tatum looked her in the eyes.

BANG! She glared right back at him.

BANG! He gave the tiniest of smirks.

BANG! The cell door slammed shut with Tatum on the inside.

She heard the key turn in the lock as Tatum began the tiger prowl across his jail cell as he would for the rest of his natural life. She watched for a moment before turning on her heel and joining the land of the living. Walking out of the Montana State Prison she felt the sun on her face, the singing of the birds, and the laughter of children. Her eyes searched the sky and she found the hole between the clouds where the sun poured out and she finally felt it. Absolution. The absolution that could only be found in putting Tatum behind bars; where he could never terrorize a group of girls like that again, where he could never shoot up another diner, where he could never take another innocent life, where he could never plague another girl with survivor's guilt.

Lindsay Monroe had found her absolution. She was free.


End file.
